


the fool keeps fighting

by spiekiel



Series: the hundred [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Misunderstandings, Wedding Speeches, lincoln is hawaiian, past relationship, stubborn idiots in love, the epic kind of love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:23:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiekiel/pseuds/spiekiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You guys were like a force of nature,” Octavia says.  “I always figured you were going to last forever.”</p><p>(in which Clarke and Bellamy broke up seven months ago, never really shook being in love, and are both too stubborn to admit they were wrong)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. know thy self, know thy enemy

The dumb thing is, she doesn’t even remember why, exactly, they broke up.

 

It could have been about what color duvet to get for their new king size bed, whose turn it was to vacuum, which parking garage they ought to keep their car at, whether they should get breakfast at that café a block from them or that diner a couple of miles away, if they should delete _Game of Thrones_ or _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ from their DVR to make room for new episodes of _Outlander_.  

 

Probably, if she really thinks about it, it was the post doctorate program that she applied for at Oxford that she didn’t tell him about until after she’d been accepted, but he’d never even yelled about that, just did that thing with his jaw and got quiet for a couple days.Plus, it hadn’t been until a couple weeks later that she’d left for good, amid yelling and a haze of red, shoving clothes and books and her favorite mug in her biggest suitcase and leaving half her worldly possessions behind, her heart too tight to look back as she stormed out the door because she knew that he had watery eyes, and those eyes could always break her heart.

 

She’d gone straight to the airport from their two-room apartment, got on a plane to Heathrow and spent the whole way there with a glass of whiskey in hand and his dogeared copy of _The Art of War_ in her lap. 

 

She hasn’t seem him for seven months, but there was never a world in which she wouldn’t recognize the back of his head and the slope of his back, even in one of those godawful Hawaiian shirts from the gift shop.

 

There’s still some hardwired programming deep in her chest that’s telling her to weave across the hotel lobby to duck under his arm and press in against his side, so it’s a good thing that she always thought more with her head anyway, because she’s pretty sure if she went over there, he’d just shrug her off and walk away.And where would that leave her for the rest of the weekend, cast off and looking for some distant relative of the groom’s to shack up with, because she will _not_ let herself fall apart over him again.

 

“Ma’am,” the concierge is waving her forward to the front desk, made out of bamboo and palm fronds.She steps up, dragging her suitcase behind her, tears her eyes from the back of Bellamy’s head.

 

Clarke forces herself to smile at the concierge.“Checking in,” she says.“Last name Griffin.”

 

The concierge taps away at the keyboard, then turns a stiff customer service smile on her.“You’re here for the Lincoln-Blake wedding?” she asks, and when Clarke nods, “Three nights?”

 

“Right.”She can handle three nights, for Octavia.Three nights she’ll spend laying wide awake in bed, because somewhere in this same hotel he’ll be sleeping with empty arms where she used to fit.

 

“Alright, Dr. Griffin, the bride has requested all of her friends and family be given rooms in the east wing overlooking the beach.Is that alright with you?”

 

“That sounds fine,” she says.  

 

Honestly, she thought she’d have more of a backbone than this.All she’s done is see him across a crowded room, in a bright yellow flower-patterned atrocity of a shirt, she hasn’t even seen his eyes yet, hasn’t even spoken to him, seen his smile or the way his hair must flop into his eyes, now that it’s longer, and curly, heard him laugh or heard that raspy rumble that his voice gets when he’s had too much to drink that takes her breath away - 

 

All she’s done is see the back of his head, for the first time after seven months of forcing herself not to touch the creased polaroid of him that she keeps in her wallet, and all the little pieces scotch-taped together in her chest are ready to crawl back to him already.

 

The concierge hands her a room key with a coral-colored water lily on it and calligraphy declaring it to be for the Huikala Beach Resort.“You’ll be in room 101,” she says.“If there’s anything we can do to make your stay here more enjoyable, please don’t be afraid to ask.”

 

Clarke smiles and takes the key from her.“Thanks.”

 

“Welcome to Hawaii, Dr. Griffin.”

 

She glances back over at him as she walks away, his hands in the pockets of his bermuda shorts, talking to a group of muscular guys that Clarke doesn’t recognize, who won’t recognize her, at least.  

 

She remembers leaving for a damn good reason.Because they were volatile, unstable, codependent, they crashed into each other at every turn and never really patched themselves up well enough to keep going on their own, not without splitting open again.Or something like that.  

 

***

 

There’s a loud knock at her door.

 

Clarke gives the door a wary look from where she’s sitting cross-legged on her bed, a spread of medical journals fanned out around her, the remains of her room service lunch sitting at the foot.She’s managed not to venture forth from her room in the four hours since she arrived safely in it, not even to head out and dip her toes in the tantalizingly azure ocean a few paces past her veranda, but she knew it was only a matter of time before someone figured out she was here and came looking.

 

The knocking returns full force.Clarke sighs and climbs off the bed, going to answer it.

 

She makes herself yank it open without looking through the peephole, which is dangerous, but utterly necessary if she wants to actually face her friends instead of turning tail and running out the back door.

 

Raven’s standing in the hall in a skimpy blue dress and a pair of wedge sandals that Clarke would twist her ankle in, her hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a twisted look of consternation on her lips.She looks Clarke up and down, for some reason unimpressed by her cutoff shorts and button down, and huffs.

 

“Haven’t seen _you_ in a while, stranger,” Raven says, her voice sharp.“Get dressed, we’re having our last unmarried girls’ night out.” 

 

Clarke snaps her mouth shut.“I am dressed,” she says, unable to help the curl tugging at the corner of her mouth, “and it’s nice to see you, too.I’ve missed you.”

 

Raven manages to hold her steel stare for a few more seconds before it breaks to give way to a smile, and she steps forward to pull Clarke into a hug.Clarke feels the first dam in her carefully closed-off reserve of emotions start to rupture, and hugs her back hard, her chin on Raven’s shoulder.“We missed you, too,” Raven says quietly.She pulls away, and catches Clarke’s gaze meaningfully, “ _All_ of us.”

 

Clarke chooses to ignore that.She takes a step back from Raven, then looks back at her bed scattered with medical jargon that her vacation brain has been struggling to comprehend.“Does this supposed girls’ night involve any kind of alcohol?”

 

Raven’s grin turns wicked.“Only all the kinds.”

 

Clarke steps into her flip flops and grabs a hoodie from the doorknob of the closet.“Fantastic. Let’s go.”  

 

The Huikala Resort bar is a bungalow-type situation sitting on the beach, gentle ukelele music wafting over the constant ebb and flow of the tide.It’s sparsely populated, mostly by older folks enjoying the still-setting sun and the free-flowing margaritas of happy hour, and the tingly paranoid feeling at the back of Clarke’s neck is starting to blow away in the gentle breeze.She’s got her right elbow knocking against Raven’s and Octavia practically hanging off her left shoulder, and she never realized she missed them this much.

 

“No, no, I have to say it,” Octavia is smiling a buzzed smile and curled around her martini glass.“I have to tell you guys, I’ve kept it in for too long - “

 

“ _O_ ,” Raven interrupts, brandishing a tiny umbrella, “I do _not_ need to hear about your fiancé’s weird sex preferences - “

 

“Oh, come on, don’t be a hypocrite,” Octavia laughs.“I sat through all your venting when you found out Finn had a thing for doing it in a spacesuit - “

 

Clarke snorts into her drink and then tries to make herself small and inconspicuous when Octavia turns her gaze on her.“Oh, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” she accuses, “the one who told me more than I _ever_ wanted to know about my brother’s tongue - “

 

“Alright, fine,” Clarke stops her, before that gets too out of hand, “go ahead, tell us what’s up with Lincoln.”Raven groans and buries her face in Clarke’s shoulder, like she can’t bear to watch the train wreck that’s about to happen.

 

“Lincoln has - “ Octavia starts, snorts and breaks down into badly-contained snittering, and then composes herself enough to continue.“Lincoln has his _belly button pierced_.”  

 

Raven disappears suddenly from Clarke’s shoulder, but Clarke’s too gone in her own laughter to really notice, choking, “That’s - that’s why he never wore a bathing suit - “

 

“He - “ Octavia is just as helpless as they are, probably because of the number of tropical drinks she’s plowed through since they’ve been sitting here.“He got it on spring break, during college.”

 

Raven pulls herself up to slouch over the bar, her shoulders shaking with giggles.“What, does he have a tramp stamp too?”

 

Octavia looks far too guilty for the possibility of a tramp stamp to be written off, hiding behind her hand because her cornrowed hair does nothing to disguise her bright red blush.“When I - if I suck on it, he - “

 

“No, no, no,” Raven waves her hands frantically, “no, too much information.Stop.Stop, please.”  

 

She’s still smiling, though, and Clarke can’t keep the grin off her own face, either, what with being back here, sandwiched between her best friend from high school and her college roommate, two people she can still trust, after everything, after seven months of radio silence.She wishes this could be it, that she could have Octavia and Raven back and leave it at that, instead of sticking out the rest of the weekend to give herself a chance to screw the rest of it all up.

 

“I missed you guys,” she says sincerely, her mouth on autopilot.

 

Octavia’s smile goes from amused to soft, and she loops an arm around Clarke’s shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze.“We would’ve visited,” she says, “if you’d, you know - called, at least.Texted.”

 

Clarke swallows the rest of her martini, and figures the best way to deal with pain has always been to get it over with as fast as possible, anyways.“I didn’t want to make you guys choose,” she says.

 

“Well,” Raven says, in that tone of voice that puts anyone who knows her well on high alert, “it would’ve been pretty hard to choose a side when we still have no idea what happened.”

 

They fall quiet for a moment, ukelele plugging along airily over the bungalow’s speakers.The sun’s all but gone down over the horizon, leaving a tranquil dusk in its wake, and with the time difference between Hawaii and London Clarke’s already looking forward to her bed, even if she wishes there was someone in it waiting for her.  

 

“We were never going to last,” Clarke says, frustrated to hear her voice choked a little.Her eyes are starting to sting.“The first time we met we yelled at each other in the middle of a froyo place.”

 

Octavia rubs her hand up and down Clarke’s arm, and this is technically her bachelorette party, they shouldn’t be having this conversation now.Nevertheless, Octavia says, “You were the only two people that could ever handle each other.You balanced each other out.”

 

Raven gives her an awkward punch on the arm.She was never good at comforting, anyways, more of a suck-it-up, tough shit kind of person.“I always figured you guys just used all the yelling as foreplay, anyways,” she offers.“It seemed like it worked.”

 

“You guys were like, a force of nature,” Octavia says.Clarke tries not to take her words at face value, because she’s halfway to sloshed and a little bit hopped up on sunlight.“I always figured you were going to last forever.”

 

Clarke motions over the bartender for another round.“Well,” she says, “on that note.I think this calls for another round of those pineapple coconut shot thingies.”

 

***

 

Jasper and Monty ambush her on her veranda with a breakfast of fresh fruit, pancakes, and spiked coffee, which she really needs given the fact that she has a moderate hangover and a whole day of potential Bellamy sightings ahead of her.

 

Monty hugs her the second she steps out of the door, even though she has some rank morning breath and a bird’s nest for hair and is wearing a shirt that she just realized either belongs to her roommate Anya or Anya’s girlfriend Lexa - she’d packed in too much of a mental panic to have noticed that detail.But Monty doesn’t seem to care, so Clarke hugs him back as good as she’s getting, and flips Jasper off when he laughs at her ducking her face into Monty’s shoulder.  

 

“So, Clarke,” says Jasper, when Monty is done squeezing her and she’s most of the way through her first cup of coffee-vodka, “we’re prepared to defend your honor.”

 

Clarke chokes on her coffee, spits it out, and puts the mug down before she can do any more damage.“Why - “ she clears her throat.“Why does my honor need defending? Also, when did we time travel back to the eighteenth century?”

 

“Look, Bellamy hasn’t told us anything,” Monty says, because Jasper has leapt upon the opportunity to try to fit an entire half of an orange in his mouth, “but chances are we’re going to take your side in whatever it was that went down.You unstuck our hands on the downlow that one time we had that superglue experiment go horribly wrong, and that sort of bought you our allegience for life, so.”

 

Clarke smiles, because what they don’t know is that while they were recovering from the anaesthesia she took pictures of them knocked out and drooling on each other on the single examination table in her exam room.“Thanks, guys.”

 

“We should probably know what we’re up against, though,” Jasper butts back in, having abandoned the mauled orange on his plate.“You know, with this whole honor-defense thing.Just so we come prepared.”

 

Clarke shifts uncomfortably in her chair, her fingers fiddling with the drawstring on her pajama shorts under the table.“It wasn’t really anyone’s fault,” she says.“I’m sorry to rain on your righteous quest, but there wasn’t a big fight or anything.We just - didn’t work anymore.All we did was fight.”

 

\- and fuck, and laugh, and sleep tangled up in each other, the safest Clarke’s ever felt, the most content, wake up in the morning and make love slow, and then he would make breakfast in his underwear while she traced the freckles on his back with her eyes, sitting at the kitchen counter in his tee shirt from the night before, and she could walk up behind him and suck a bruise into that spot between his shoulder blades - 

 

“All you guys _ever_ did was fight,” Monty says.“It just never really mattered, because you were both happy fighting, and it never meant anything.Weird, but we all just sort of rolled with it.”

 

Clarke stuffs a piece of mellon in her mouth, and garbles around it, “Can we talk about something else?”

 

It’s a damning sign of the state of Jasper and Monty’s table manners that they understand her perfectly.“Yeah, of course,” Jasper says.“Miller scheduled us a group surfing lesson, and you’re going.You have no choice.We will kidnap you, Monty has the components for chloroform in our room.”

 

“Wouldn’t that make the surfing part kind of difficult?” Clarke asks, just to be contrary.

 

“Fine, no chloroform,” Jasper concedes.“But you _are_ coming, because I have to tell you the story of Monty and the next door neighbor with the ferocious Pomeranian - “

 

“No,” Monty tries, to no avail.

 

Jasper waves his hand at Monty’s face to shush him.“ - because it ends with the fire department and a police K-9 unit in our hallway, and Monty hiding in a running shower with a cat, and the world _must be told_ \- “

 

***

 

The dress she has on for the rehearsal dinner is making her boobs look big.  

 

If she really thinks about it, her heels are too high, or maybe not quite high enough, they’re too medium, and her lipstick is _way_ too red, she should probably redo her hair, she accidentally used her trashy mascara instead of the good one, her smoky eye looks more like a smudged eye, and - 

 

Clarke snaps her makeup kit shut and drops it on the bathroom counter, then forces herself to step back from the mirror and out of the bathroom.  

 

Her hotel room is cool, the doors to her veranda open to let in the evening air wafting steadily in off the ocean, and goosebumps breathe over her skin, her bare shoulders and the swoop of her dress down over her chest.She turns off the bathroom light, leaving the room in a calm sort of dim.  

 

There’s a hammock out on the beach, near a lit tiki torch, swaying gently over the sand.Clarke stands in the door, grasping the handle, poised to pull it closed, and seriously considers bailing on this whole evening to hide out there, close her eyes and let the island lull her to sleep, until she has to get up and go to tomorrow afternoon’s wedding.But Octavia wanted her to be here, and Clarke is pretty sure she couldn’t stand to lose another one of the Blake siblings at this point, so she pulls the doors shut against the temptation of the open air and ducks back into the room.

 

She walks across the room quickly and yanks open the door to the hall, stepping out, and - 

 

Bellamy freezes in front of the door to room 102.  

 

Clarke feels her stomach drop through the floor.She freezes, stock still with her fingers stuttering on the doorknob, which is ridiculous, because it’s just Bellamy, just the one person she knows best in the world, who hated her the last time he saw her, who looks at her wide-eyed and open for a split second before his expression goes steely - it’s ridiculous, because she has never been afraid of this idiot.

 

He’s in a light grey suit, a pale green shirt with a darker tie tied crooked around his neck, because he was always awful at tying ties.His face is sun-kissed and splattered with freckles, hair curled and frizzed around his face in a way that tells her he’s been in the ocean, and she bets he tastes like salt, still.He locks eyes with her, and the intensity is the same it’s always been, even in those last weeks when she never knew whether he was going to kiss her or start yelling, but he’s shuttered off - he’s doing that thing with his jaw.

 

Clarke presses her lips together and closes the door carefully, the sound of the latch loud in the tense silence between them.She swallows, clears her throat, and doesn’t know where she’s going when she starts to say, “Bellamy - “ 

 

“Look,” he interrupts, and she tamps down on the idea that hearing his voice for the first time in months feels like coming home, “all we need to do is be civil for three days, for Octavia, and then you can run off to London or Oxford or wherever the hell you’re living now, and we can both just forget about this and go back to our lives.”

 

It feels like a punch to the chest, like a splash of ice water across her face to remind her that there’s nothing amicable here, that the best they can hope for is to try to be _civil_ , but she has never been quite able to shake the chunk of her heart that was whiplash in love with him.  

 

“Bellamy,” she tries again, quieter, “we should talk, at least.”

 

It’s weak, and she knows it won’t work, because they were never that good at talking, anyways, always had a sort of built-in understanding of what each other were thinking, but she doesn’t expect it to go quite like this, for him to turn his face away and say, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

 

And Clarke recognizes this feeling.This is the feeling she took with her to La Guardia, the stiff, sore, pulled muscle of her heart twisting inside her chest that made her slam their bedroom door in his face, made her take his favorite book and the picture of the two of them he kept on his bedside table, made her storm out of their apartment and into a taxi in sweatpants and his tee shirt, a coat thrown on haphazardly, lugging a huge suitcase even while he shouted behind her that she was being stupid, come back, come _back_ , you idiot.

 

Bellamy’s walking away from her down the hall, towards the elevator to head up to the banquet hall where Octavia and Lincoln’s rehearsal dinner will be in about two minutes, the same way she has to go.Hell if she’s going to let him make her walk all the way around the other side of the wing to use the other elevator, so she hurries after him and slips inside just as the doors are sliding closed.

 

He glances down at her out of the corner of his eye, then returns to staring straight ahead at the closed doors.Clarke rolls her eyes and taps her heel, “You’re going to have to look at me at some point.”

 

He raises his eyebrows in silent disagreement.

 

She huffs in frustration.Three days, and she can go back to her post-doc and Anya and Lexa and living on autopilot without her weak spot for Bellamy Blake to worry about.“Fine.Are you going to let me fix your tie, or are you going to walk in there looking like a doofus?”

 

He glares at her, and she raises an eyebrow.He breathes out in a long sigh, and turns towards her.

 

She reaches out and starts to fix the knot of his tie, straightening it and then pulling it snug while he stubbornly looks anywhere but her face, even as her eyes trace the familiar lines of his cheeks, his tight lips.Her fingertips brush the skin of his neck, just for a second, and the contact is like fire in her veins, electric, like it hasn’t been since their first year, that primordial blaze that preceded the steady burn.

 

He steps away from her, so that he’s almost touching the wall of the elevator.Clarke looks away, and this elevator is stupidly slow, they should’ve been there ages ago - 

 

“I want my Sun Tzu back,” Bellamy says.

 

Clarke grinds her teeth and tries to drill an escape route through the doors with her eyes.“What makes you think I have it? You leant it to Jasper, maybe he forgot to give it back - “

 

“No, you have it,” Bellamy cuts her off decisively.“I haven’t seen it in seven months.I need it back - “

 

“So, you’re accusing me of stealing, now?” Clarke snaps.“Nice, real nice.I’ll add that to the official list of charges against his majesty the king when I get back to Oxford - “

 

“You go ahead and do that, and then mail me my book back.”His voice is hard, but it has that louder strain in it that tells her if she doesn’t appease him he’s not going to drop this for as long as it takes to win.

 

“I didn’t take your book, Bellamy,” she shoots back.“I know you’re paranoid as all fuck, but we aren’t actually fighting a war, you don’t need your excessive _strategy_ notes, if you really need the wise advice of Sun Tzu to guide you through everyday life just buy another copy - “

 

Bellamy turns to loom over her, face flushed, ears bright red, and Clarke knows that if she stepped forward and tugged his earlobe between her lips he’d flush all the way down to his knees, if she bit down his moan would be rough and hot against her neck - 

 

The elevator doors _ping_ and slide open.

 

***

 

“I’m, uh - I’m not really sure why Lincoln and O want me to give this toast.”

 

The thin flute of champagne looks awkward in Bellamy’s hand, like he still hasn’t learned how to hold things he can’t put his fist around, sink his fingertips into.She knows he’d rather have a bottle of beer in his hand, or an irish coffee, because wine and champagne are wimpy drinks in his mind, and Monty’s moonshine is declared too strong after that one incident with the lingerie.

 

The entire banquet hall - or at least, what portion of it is taken up by Octavia and Lincoln’s closed family, friends, and wedding party - is watching him, including Clarke, from her seat between Lincoln’s best man Nyko and an extremely sun-tanned Miller.It’s dim, the far wall open in a large panoramic window that looks out over the ocean, and Bellamy looks hazy in the illumination from the tiki-style sconces lining the walls.

 

He ducks his head, hiding his smile as he laughs to himself.“I don’t exactly have the best track record in love,” he continues.“I’ve only ever been in one serious relationship, because there was only one serious relationship, with one girl, that I ever had any interest in being in.”

 

His eyes flitter over the room, and she doesn’t know if he’s looking for her but he doesn’t find her, anyways.“But I guess that gives me a unique perspective on love, because I can tell you all that the most important thing in the world, once you find that one relationship, is to do everything you can to make sure it lasts.For the rest of your life, forever, the words don’t really matter, just - make it last.

 

“My, uh - my baby sister was always smarter than me about this sort of thing,” Bellamy’s smiling at the head table, where Octavia is sitting practically on Lincoln’s lap, the older man watching her face with half-lidded eyes, oblivious to the rest of the room.“I’m glad that she is, too, because that means I get to see her be happy, with her one serious relationship, because - I think we can safely say she’s got it locked down at this point, and I have a good feeling that these two are going to make it last.”

 

He smiles, wavery, then ducks to say lowly into the microphone, “And Lincoln, if you screw this up, I will find you, and I will break you in half.”

 

Lincoln’s smiling into Octavia’s shoulder as Bellamy returns the microphone to one of the hotel staff, conversation returning slowly to the room.Their dinner plates have been cleared away, but Clarke has been assured by an enthusiastic Jasper that there will be pie later, some local coconut recipe that Lincoln’s mother used to make and Octavia requested as a surprise.

 

In her peripheral vision, Clarke sees Bellamy stand from the table, leaving his champagne flute in the welcoming hands of Raven to duck out the nearest exit into the hall of the hotel.  

 

She gets up to follow him before she really registers that she’s even decided to move, which is dumb, she should definitely go back to her seat, and by the disapproving look Miller is giving her, he definitely agrees with that sentiment, because the last person Bellamy wants to see right now is probably his one girl - 

 

The noise of conversation from the dining room fades to a hushed murmur in the wide, empty hallway, and the sound of her footsteps is muffled by the wall-to-wall carpeting, patterned with sea shells and fish, green-blue and a horrible clash with the rest of the authenticity of the place.  

 

He’s leaning against the wall ahead of her, his back turned, hunched around the blue-lit screen of his phone.Clarke stops a few paces away from him, doesn’t say anything for a long minute, because she didn’t come out here with a plan of action, Sun Tzu would be ashamed.

 

Bellamy casts her a glance over his shoulder, and his expression is downcast, stormy.“You’re going to miss the pie,” he says, without turning around.“Lincoln’s been raving about it since I met him - “

 

“I miss you,” Clarke says, and she thought she had a better backbone than this.She thought she was the strong one, the one who saved herself from a bad situation and an unhealthy relationship, but no, she’s just a girl who’s never going to get over this man right here, no matter how much she wants to.

 

Bellamy turns around, and the look on his face is like he’s been punched.“Who the fuck’s fault is that, Clarke?” he demands.  

 

She looks away, at a colourful fish in the rug, eyes unfocused and hard.“We were a mess, Bell,” she says, “we were a time bomb from the get-go, it was only a matter of time before we imploded - “

 

He laughs harshly, taking a step away from her, “You just keep telling yourself that, babe.”

 

She steps forward into his space, hot with anger, shoots back, “You think it was my fault, then, right? Our relationship was unhealthy, Bellamy, it was going to end up wrecking both of us - “

 

“Oh, so _what,_ you saved us?” Bellamy’s right up in her face, his voice a growl, and everyone in the banquet hall can hear them, probably.“Stop trying to put us in a neat little fucking box, Clarke, neither of us have ever been _healthy_ , we’ve never been normal, and I _never_ cared about getting wrecked by you - “

 

“I couldn’t _take_ it anymore,” Clarke snaps, stands her ground, even though her knees feel weak and her spine feels like liquid under the fierce concentration of his gaze, “everything was always a fight with you - “

 

“Like you’re any better, _princess_ ,” he snarls, all spitfire, “sure, we fought, that’s just _who we are_ , but we _worked,_ Clarke, we were good together, we were the best goddamn thing that ever happened to me, and then you walked out and didn’t come back, you threw us away like we didn’t matter at all - “

 

He stops, the muscles of his jaw jumping, his brow furrowed, breathing through his nose to walk his heartbeat back, the way Clarke’s short-lived yoga instructor taught her and she taught him, and they’re close enough that she imagines she can hear his blood rushing in his veins, hot and strong.

 

Her voice is quiet, just barely louder than the rehearsal dinner still going on on the other side of the wall, “You were the only thing that mattered, Bellamy.I thought I was saving both of us.”

 

For the better part of a year Clarke’s felt like she doesn’t know what he’s thinking anymore, like she can’t just meet his gaze and give him the answer he’s looking for before he asks the question, but - his forehead smooths out, and he’s looking at her earnest and burning, and she sucks in a deep breath and is ready to catch him when he steps forward into her - 

 

He crashes his mouth into hers, and her hands come up to grab the back of his neck, nails digging into his skin, she stumbles back and he stops her with both arms around her waist and heat blazes through the inside of her body like she’s been set aflame, like she’s flying too close to the sun, but she never fell - 

 

Bellamy makes a soft sound against her, his teeth scraping her lower lip, and Clarke lets her mouth fall open under his, lets herself moan breathily when he tongues across the place where his teeth were, and this is familiar, this feeling of being completely safe and at the same time standing at the edge of the sky, about to fall off, or jump off, the feeling of the only guy she’s ever loved, ever really trusted, ever been with since college, since three years and eight months ago, in a froyo place in Brooklyn, this is what Clarke gave up, and she’s never felt like more of an idiot.

 

His hand slides over the open back of her dress, his calloused fingers warm and steady, up to tangle in her hair, tugging at her messy bun to tilt her head back, his other arm pulling her flush against him, and she’s on her toes even in her heels to reach him.  

 

Her heart’s slamming double time, and she can feel his heart, too, a sledgehammer beating against her chest, and she feels like she’s been holding her breath for seven months, like she’s finally surfaced now that she can feel him under her fingers, the muscles of his back even through the layers of his suit, the sharp jut of his jaw, the sweep of his eyelashes against his cheek, now that she can feel that he’s whole, he’s solid and real and the same Bellamy Blake she’s always loved, the same Bellamy she missed, but - 

 

She left for a reason.  

 

Clarke draws away from his mouth, but his arms keep her pressed close, he follows her to rest his forehead against hers, a gentle smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, his body soft and pliant - 

 

She closes her eyes.“This is a bad idea,” she says, and the words taste awful on her tongue.

 

He stiffens against her, and she lets her hands fall away from him as he steps back.The empty air is cold against her skin, and there’s a hollow feeling settling back in her stomach as she opens her eyes.

 

He has her lipstick smeared across his mouth, crimson, a battle wound.

 

She can see the hurt on his face for only a split second before he shutters himself back off, his blank glare locked stubbornly on a large conch shell on the rug under his foot.“You’re right,” he says, carefully, and she can hear the tension in his voice.“I - “

 

He cuts himself off, doesn’t finish, just turns and walks away, leaving her in the middle of the hall with her hair mussed and her skin flushed hot, the rehearsal dinner continuing uninterrupted behind her, as if her whole fabricated world hasn’t just been torn open at the seams, again.

 


	2. a thousand battles, a thousand victories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You know, in my mind, that’s the most important day of my life. The most pivotal moment. Not the day I got into med school. Not the day my dad died. Not when I moved to Oxford, or when the house I grew up in burned down. The day I met Bellamy Blake, that’s - That’s it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took so long. hope it was worth the wait

The sound of curtains being drawn back floats Clarke slowly into awareness.  

 

She can feel the warmth of the morning sun on the back of her head, can sense its light even though her face is still pressed into their pillows, and she smiles, because Bellamy had insisted on paying the extra hundred a month for an apartment on the sunny side of the building, and he’d been right, it’s nice to be able to sleep in and be woken up by sunlight and his relaxed, happy body stretched out next to hers - 

 

She rolls over, eyelashes hanging heavy across her vision, sheets twisting around her middle, and skims her hand over the sheets towards his side of the bed - 

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Clarke.”

 

Every muscle in Clarke’s body freezes, and she winces, and it would be funny as shit if she were still as drunk as last night, but she’s not.She swallows, tries to speak, clears her throat, tries again, and manages to say, “Finn.”

 

He’s smiling far too bright a smile for however early it probably is from his spot standing at the foot of the bed, decked out in full island garb and with a smug enough look in his eye that she thinks it’s a safe bet he already took a picture of her drooling all over his and Raven’s bed.  

 

Clarke makes herself roll over on her back, irrevocably cinched in the sheets, her dress from the night before ridden up around her hips under the whole mess.“What - “ she tries.

 

“What indeed,” Finn parrots, rocking back and forth on his feet.“With the sheer volume of champagne you were consuming at the rehearsal last night - well, and then the tequila shots, and then Monty’s moonshine - I’m surprised you can remember the last _month_ , let alone last night.”

 

Clarke groans, because Finn’s voice has brought out the nasty hangover headache, the one that’s going to stick around all day and make her life a living hell until she can get her hands on more champagne at the reception tonight.“How did I get here?” she asks, sort of dreading the answer, because she and Finn did some _dumb as shit_ things back in high school, and the last thing she needs is a repeat.

 

“Raven found you sitting on the beach and gazing dramatically into the ocean, sans room key, and decided that you were way too drunk to be that close to a large body of water.”He tosses a bottle of ibuprofen down on the bed, and Clarke forces herself to sit up to grab it.

 

“Well, thanks for rescuing me.I guess.”She pops a pill, and swallows it dry.She’s had enough experience with hangovers the past few months to be able to down it without gagging. 

 

Finn’s staring at her with that intense concerned look on his face that used to do funny things to her insides back when they were kids, when she used to be attracted to people that didn’t have freckles all the way down to their shoulders and the goofiest post-orgasm smile of anyone ever.“What happened, princess?” he asks, and Clarke closes her eyes, because - 

 

If she’d woken up right, the way she still felt like she was supposed to, she would’ve rolled over into his side, sheets tangled around her waist, buried her face in his shoulder and requested pancakes, and he would’ve smiled into her hair and rumbled, “ _You know where the Bisquick is,_ princess - “

 

But instead she’s glaring at Finn over a Hawaiian lily bedspread, saying tiredly, “I’m allowed to drink, Finn.It’s not like I had to drive home, you know.”  

 

He raises his eyebrows at her, and says warningly, “Clarke.”His tone of voice makes her feel like she’s sixteen again, naked and wrapped in an afghan on the couch in his basement, listening to the muffled tones of him trying to steer his girlfriend away from the basement door upstairs.“Come on, I know you better than that.You don’t drink like you did last night unless you’ve got something to forget.”

 

Clarke thinks of Bellamy in the hall last night, saying they just need to get through the next two days and they can get back to their lives, thinks of sitting at the open bar and envisioning the medical papers strewn across her bed in her room downstairs, of the kind of life she wants to have, really, and the one she’s trying to force herself into. 

 

She swims her way to the edge of the bed and clambers gracefully out of it, tugging her dress down to cover her ass.Instead of answering, she does her damndest to walk past Finn in the most dignified manner she can manage in her current state of being, tottering on bare feet and a few inches shorter than she likes. 

 

Out in the sitting room of the suite, Raven laughs around the rim of a coffee mug as Clarke walks past towards the door, a sharp smirk curling her lips.Clarke flips her off.“Walk of shame, huh?” Raven says smugly, “Bet you haven’t done that in a while, have you?”

 

Clarke turns in the doorway to stare her down.“There is nothing I want to do less than talk about it,” she says.“How long do I have until the wedding?”

 

Raven checks the clock on Finn’s phone, then tosses it back down on the couch next to her.“It’s almost one now, so four hours.Octavia wants to start getting ready in an hour, though.As if she needs preparation.She could just put on the dress and go and Lincoln would still look at her like she was the most beautiful person to ever live in the history of the earth.”

 

Clarke drops her head lightly against the edge of the open door.It pounds painfully.“Do you know what room Monty and Jasper are in?”

 

***

 

She finds Monty and Jasper sitting at the edge of the surf on the beack outside their suite with a bottle of moonshine sitting in the sand between them.She’s had a shower and put on fresh clothes, but she still feels like she swallowed another one of those shots with the eel in the bottom, which was the worst decision she ever made in college, and she’s really hoping she didn’t do it again.

 

She plops down next to Monty and makes grabby hands at the moonshine.He hands it over obligingly, without a word, and she takes a long swig.“Long night?” Jasper asks.“You look like you drank the whole Jell-O shot rainbow.And then some.”

 

Clarke takes a deep breath, her headache already dissipating slightly under the sheer alcoholic force of Monty’s home brew, and lilts sideways onto his shoulder.He puts his arm around her, still not saying anything, and for the first time in a really long time, she wants to cry.Feels like it would all be fine if she did.

 

“I kissed Bellamy last night,” she says.“Or, he kissed me.I don’t know.”

 

Jasper smiles encouragingly and makes some celebratory jazz hands in the air in front of him.“Yay,” he says, “that’s good, right?”He looks hopeful, and Clarke feels something inside her crumple a little.

 

She shakes her head against Monty’s shoulder.“It wasn’t - anything,” she says decisively.Her voice feels raw, the breeze rolls in off the ocean light and calming, and Hawaii feels like the last place she should be.It’s too close to paradise, and paradise sucks when your insides feel like an endless firey hellmouth.“I stopped it.I told him it was a bad idea.I - “ her voice breaks.

 

Monty squeezes her against his side.“Why?” he asks.Anyone else, Clarke would probably shove them.Scream at them.Walk away.Anything except turn her head and wipe her eyes on his shirt.

 

She meets Jasper’s worried gaze, and then turns back to look out at the crashing waves.“I don’t know,” she admits.“You guys - “ she stops, swallows, composes herself, starts again.“Senior year, you guys were the ones who dragged me away from studying for finals to go get froyo with the girl Jasper had a crush on.You’re the reason I was in that shop when Octavia dragged her brother in, and - “

 

She breaks off.It feels like she’s about to bring the whole sky crashing down on top of her, but the world’s already been shattered, anyway, and she’s thumbed through Bellamy’s handwriting in the margins of the _Art of War_ enough times to be able to survive the violent beginning of a new era.

 

“You know, in my mind, that’s the most important day of my life.The most pivotal moment.Not the day I got into med school.Not the day my dad died.Not when I moved to Oxford, or when the house I grew up in burned down.The day I met Bellamy Blake, that’s - That’s it.”

 

It’s silent for a long moment, but no one moves to go anywhere, and that’s what’s important.Finally, Jasper says, “I could’ve sworn the most important day of your life was the day me and Monty blew up that chem lab you were in.I’m a little hurt, Clarke.”

 

Clarke laughs, and it surprises her.“That was - the perfect thing to say.Thanks.”

 

Monty squeezes her shoulder.“I know what will make you feel better,” he says.“I do believe you’ve heard tell of the next door neighbor with the ferocious Pomeranian.”

 

Jasper looks at Monty in wonder, “You’ve never volunteered to tell that story before.”

 

Monty grins.“That’s a lie, one time Miller got me really drunk and I told him the extended director’s cut. Plus, this time I’m telling _my_ version, because yours is totally biased, seeing as you were a hundred percent in love with the neighbor at the time - “

 

“Maya was a _goddess_ and you damned well know it, Monty Green, you were just too distracted by her terrible little gremlin dog - “Clarke laughs easily and reaches for the moonshine, and the Atlantic Ocean suddenly feels like way too much space to put between herself and home.

 

***

 

Octavia and Lincoln’s wedding ceremony makes everything else in Clarke’s life feel very trivial.  

 

It’s on a secluded beach in the far reaches of the resort, palm trees cozying in on three sides and the ocean a gentle expanse behind the altar, flowy fabrics rippling softly in the air off the water where they’re draped over an archway braided with bright orange flowers.The priest wears a traditional Hawaiian headdress, and they all have leis over their dresses and suits, no one is wearing shoes.

 

Lincoln’s mother is wider than she is high and is wearing the biggest smile Clarke’s ever seen when she pulls her son down to her level and smacks a kiss on his forehead, waddling off to the first row of seats and leaving Lincoln to stand alone at the altar, hands clasped behind his back, Nyko behind him.Clarke turns away in time to see Octavia appear at the end of the aisle, but Raven elbows her pointedly and then jerks her head towards Lincoln again, and he’s - 

 

He looks like he’s seen his future, and she’s _beautiful_.He looks like he’s been punched, like he’s just been thoroughly kissed, like he’s been in the desert for a hundred days and someone’s just dumped a bucket of water over his head, like he’d be content never to take another breath if he could just _touch_ her.  

 

Bellamy steps out into the aisle to offer Octavia his arm, and Clarke gets hit with her own minor version of the same feeling.Octavia slips a hand into her brother’s elbow, and Bellamy’s red in the face like he always used to get when Clarke used to make him watch _Saving Private Ryan_ and he would try so hard not to cry because she was already crying like a baby.  

 

Soft ukelele music plucks along on the edge of Clarke’s awareness.Her eyes itch.

 

Octavia’s dress is gorgeous, now that Clarke is far enough removed from the ordeal of getting the damn thing on her, a sleeveless number with a deep v-neck to the bottom of her chestbone, loose drapey skirt shorter in front so she can walk.  

 

Clarke shifts her feet in the cool sand and tries hard not to think about the fact that she’s known what dress she would buy if Bellamy ever asked her to marry him since the first month they were going out, because he once caught her looking through a catalog and stopped to point one out, murmur in her ear how he could take it off her with his mouth - 

 

Fat, wet tears are slipping down Bellamy’s face despite his best efforts by the time he hugs his sister at the end of the aisle, Octavia going up on her toes to kiss his cheek.He falls into place behind Nyko, swiping at the dampness on his cheeks, and Clarke’s fingers squeeze around her bouquet.  

 

“Dearly beloved,” the priest begins, “we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of Octavia Athena Blake and Kalei Maleko Lincoln…”

 

Clarke feels her eyes drift up like she’s floating up out of her body, and she finds Bellamy already watching her across the altar.Her heart thumps over a beat, and - Bellamy is the only person she’s ever felt really _tied_ to.Their relationship has always felt like a promise, a comforting anchor as solid as his waist between her thighs when he would hoist her onto their kitchen counter, and even now, even after she broke every oath they ever made, she feels like she could still call him if she ever needed him, and he’d haul ass to get to her.

 

As if she doesn’t need him every day.As if she doesn’t hold his gaze across the distant expanse of beach between them, his curls tousled and his tie snug against his throat, and have to rapidly blink back tears.As if she doesn’t thank every god there ever was that she wore waterproof mascara, because a single teardrop beads on her eyelashes and falls.She probably imagines that his hand twitches as if to brush it away.

 

“Do you, Octavia, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?” the priest asks.

 

Octavia smiles radiantly.She links her fingers through Lincoln’s.“I do,” she says. 

 

“Do you, Kalei, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

 

Lincoln brings their clasped hands to his lips and kisses the back of Octavia’s knuckles.“I do.”

 

The priest turns and gestures to Nyko.“The rings?” Nyko pulls a velvet box out of his pocket and opens it, handing it to the priest, who holds it for Lincoln to take a ring, and then Octavia.They each slip a ring onto each other’s fingers, Lincoln’s hands shaking until Octavia wraps them in hers, stilling them.“I now pronounce you man and wife.You may kiss the bride.”

 

Octavia grabs Lincoln by the lapels and pulls him down hard, smiling into the kiss as his arms go around her waist, she’s lifted off her feet like she weighs nothing, Clarke’s chest is a strange whirlpool of joy and crushing loss, and then - 

 

She watches their first dance from a table in the back corner, a full glass of red wine in one hand and one thumb rubbing back and forth absently over her knee.The DJ reaches the end of the slow song, and a quicker drum beat starts up; even as Monty and Jasper flail out onto the dance floor, Monroe and Sterling close behind, Lincoln is still holding his wife by the waist, swaying and speaking softly into her ear.

 

Clarke downs half the wine glass in one go.She’s well on her way to being a high-functioning alcoholic, and as Miller helps himself to the seat next to her, she can’t bring herself to care.

 

Miller clears his throat and awkwardly straightens his tie.It must be hard for him, being in a climate too hot for his trademark beanie.“Look, Clarke,” he says, “I’m no good at this.But I’m the only one here who’s gonna choose him over you, every time, so.I need you to know that, for Bellamy, it’s still not over.It never will be, unless you either tell him straight up, or take him back.”

 

Clarke turns to look at him.The lights rove sedately through the tent, and an upbeat pop singer tells Clarke to _shut up and dance with me_.“Okay,” she says.Miller nods, and leaves her.

 

She drinks the other half of the wine glass, and sets the thing down on the table, where it wobbles dangerously before sitting down.All she wants to do is slink back to her hotel room and wrap herself in the single one of Bellamy’s tee shirts she still has, bundle up in the duvet, and read Sun Tzu until she falls asleep.But really that’s only a substitute for the real thing.

 

***

 

“What do you want, Clarke?”

 

Bellamy’s sitting in the sand with his elbows braced on his knees, tie undone and dress shirt unbuttoned half way down.He looks warm in the darkness, like he’s got a glow to him, and Clarke shivers, goosebumps raising as she runs her hands up her bare arms.The sand is cold under her feet, the air wafting off the ocean brisk and sobering when it ruffles her skirt around her knees.

 

“We were the best thing that ever happened to me, too,” she says, before she can decide not to.Bellamy looks up sharply, brow furrowed.

 

“That’s not fair,” he says, lowly.“You said we were a disaster, you were right.You wanted to leave, you left, it’s _over,_ princess, you made damned well sure of that - “

 

“It’s never over, Bell,” she says.Her voice is wavering, like it’s about to burst into a shout.“Not with us.I love you, and I’m always going to love you, no matter how infuriating you are, or how much I hate you, or how far away you are, or how many other people I meet, it’s always going to be you.”

 

He turns his face up to her in the moonlight, his expression wide open and awed like it was during Clarke’s first attempt at seduction, barely twenty years old in red lingerie and a pair of his boxers, because that hungry look he got whenever she wore his clothes always turned her on like nothing else.

 

She steps cautiously in between his bent legs.His hands go to her hips, his face level with her stomach.He swallows, closes his eyes, and rests his forehead against the weave of her dress.“You met someone else?” he asks, and it is _so_ like him to fixate on that - 

 

“No,” she says.It’s true.“It was just a hypothetical.There’s never going to be anyone else, whether I like it or not.You’re it for me, Bellamy Blake.”

 

His hands curl into fists, bunching her dress up her legs, and she can feel the pressure of his fingers even through the fabric, hard enough to bruise.Next thing she knows she’s pulled down into his lap, knees in the sifting sand on either side of him, his thighs against her back, one of his hands running up through her hair.

 

She runs a hand over the side of his face, maybe too hard, but she’s had the phantom ache to get her hands on him for seven months, and here he is, letting her, and whether this is the last time or the pseudo-first of many many more she’s not going to let the opportunity slip her by.His breath is warm on her lips, his arms strong around her when she sways into him, and he murmurs, “You’re it for me, too - “

 

He kisses her slow, but there’s an edge of desperation that has Clarke rocking in his lap, one hand tugging through the hair on the back of his head, a soft sound in the back of her throat as his callused palm settles over the nape of her neck.She licks into his mouth and he moans, and it shakes her to her core, like the roar of a 747 taking off, the ocean surging up to swallow their island whole - 

 

She slides his jacket off his shoulders, the urge to press chest to chest suddenly overwhelming, like, “I need to feel your heartbeat,” and she must have said that out loud, because Bellamy swears, “ _Fuck_ ,” his voice raspy, and that means he’s had too much to drink, but - 

 

He wraps his jacket around her shoulders, and suddenly she’s surrounded by his heat and his scent, his face taking up her entire line of sight, his smile curled and gentle and encouraging, and it feels so much like coming home she could fucking _sob_.

 

Instead, she presses her lips to his, less of an undertone of urgency than before, one hand cupping his jaw, and she can feel his smile, taste the subtle, acrid tang of Sam Adams on his tongue, the overwhelming familiarity of his mouth that she spent three years learning.She gets the rest of the buttons of his shirt undone and runs her palms over his stomach under his under shirt, feels his abs jump from the contact.

 

He leaves her mouth to nuzzle into her neck, behind her ear, biting softly on that spot that he knows makes her spine melt.She gasps, chest heaving against her dress, and his hand on her hip pulls her down to grind against the hard length in the front of his pants, sending a spike of white hot pleasure straight through her.  

 

His nose skims against hers as he brushes her hair back from her face, heavy gaze point-blank on hers.Clarke feels like she’s in a trance.He murmurs close against her skin, “I woke up every morning missing you, baby.”And she can’t _not_ kiss him, but he gives as good as he gets, always has - 

 

Kissing Bellamy has always been easy, whether it’s in the back of a public elevator or slammed against the door of their apartment or laying on the too-soft couch in Monty’s parents’ place at Christmas, and it’s just as easy now, on a dark beach a hundred yards from his sister’s wedding reception, disparate chords of _from the streets of babylon_ drifting intermittantly across the sand.

 

Her lips travel down to his throat, the soft skin under his jaw warm against her tongue and driving her insane, Bellamy’s fingertips skim up the outside of her thighs, under her dress, hook under the string of the leg of her underwear to snap it, tossing the skimpy thing aside to spread his big hands over her bare skin.

 

She fumbles with the clasp of his pants, hands clumsy and muscles turned to jelly by the pit of fire in her navel, and his hands move to bury in her hair, pressing kisses across her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, gently over her eyes, and Clarke can’t _breathe -_

 

“Love you,” she feels more than hears the rumble of his voice, “ _God_ , I could never stop loving you, Clarke.”

 

They decided six months before she left that the benefits of getting rid of condoms outweighed the risks, that feeling him deep inside her skin-to-skin every night was worth the occasional pregnancy scare, because it’s not like Clarke had failed to notice the adorable, fascinated smile Bellamy got whenever they went to visit Clarke’s goddaughter, the tiniest Jaha -

 

So when she finally manages to get his belt off and his fly open, there’s only a second’s delay when her hips hitch up before she sinks down onto him, until she can feel the jut of his hipbones against her ass.

 

She pauses, Bellamy breathing heavy into her shoulder, surrounded by his jacket and his heat and his scent and stretched full as he struggles not to buck into her, aborted little thrusts that force soft sounds out of her lungs, and decides, “I can’t fight you any more, Bell.”She brushes her fingers through his hair, pushing his curls out of his face so that she can see him, and she never wants to go back to a place where she doesn’t have this, doesn’t have him.“I don’t want to fight you any more.”

 

His face _breaks_ , lips parting, slick and kissed red in the moonlight.He pulls her down into an open-mouthed kiss, rasps against her bottom lip, “You were the only thing I ever found worth fighting for.”

 

And then he’s moving, and she’s moving with him.The only sounds are the quick gasps of their shared breath, the crashing waves behind them, and Clarke presses her hand over Bellamy’s chest and can feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under her palm.  

 

Later, she’s curled up against his chest, the party starting to taper off in the distance, tracing absent swirls with her fingertips into Bellamy’s side.There was a tightness in her chest she walked around with for seven months, and it’s gone, and she’s never felt as free as she feels now, like a life without him is what she really needed to escape.

 

“I love you,” she says.“I’m sorry.”For everything.For leaving, for hurting him, hurting both of them, not coming back when he asked her to, taking his Sun Tzu.

 

His lips still where he’s been skimming them lightly over her hairline, and then he presses a chaste, dry kiss to her forehead.The corners of his mouth feel like they’re trembling.  

 

She falls asleep easily.Doesn’t even have to bore her mind into numbness going over medical jargon until her eyes blur and she’s too tired to go steal her roommate’s reading glasses.Bellamy lays back with his head in the sand, half on his side and turned into her, like during the hurricane when they shared a sleeping bag in the crowded lobby of their building.

 

When she wakes up, it’s a gray, drizzly dawn, the storm has torn through and left her raw and hollow, she’s shivering under Bellamy’s jacket, and he’s gone.

 

***

 

This is not what Octavia should be doing on her first day as a married woman.She should be on the way to her honeymoon in Spain, sharing a bottle of champagne with her husband in the first class seating Clarke updated them to as a gift.She should absolutely not, under any circumstances, be stalking towards Clarke across the crowded international terminal, dragging said husband in tow behind her.  

 

Clarke’s wearing an old pair of red sweatpants that she brought to sleep in, and an extra large tee shirt that she bought in one of the airport stores that says _I heart Honolulu_ in big, obnoxious lettering.She has sand in unmentionable places, flecks of day-old mascara under her eyes, and Bellamy’s suit jacket stuffed in the bottom of her carry on.She does _not_ feel like talking to anyone.

 

Oblivious to this opinion, Octavia drops down into the empty seat next to her, and levels her with an appraising look.“I missed you at the reception last night,” she says pointedly.

 

The tried and tested way to get Octavia to go away as quickly as possible is to say, “I was having sex with your brother, sorry.”

 

Octavia makes a face, but doesn’t leave.Lincoln’s standing awkwardly behind her with his hands in his pockets, looking out the window like he isn’t listening to every word.“Ew, thanks,” Octavia says.“I don’t need to hear about that.I’d rather hear about how you’re running away again.”

 

Clarke wants to just say _yeah_.Let Octavia hate her for breaking her brother’s heart.But there are still tiny little shards of her heart stuck through the rest of her insides, so she flushes bright red with restrained anger and snaps, “Actually, he left me sleeping alone on the beach.So technically I’m running away, yeah, but he started it this time.”

 

She sighs and rubs the back of her hand over her eyes.Octavia is watching her, and she can feel the concern radiating off her, and she feels - _stupid_.So, so stupid, for getting herself in this mess.

 

“You’re both idiots,” Octavia declares.“This is ridiculous.Did you guys talk at all?”

 

“We - “ Clarke stops, considering.“We talked some.It seemed like everything was okay.”And it did, until she was waking up and rolling over and there was only sand slipping through her fingers, and then it just seemed like sitting in a cab in New York traffic all over again.  

 

Octavia quirks an eyebrow.“If you talk while you’re having sex, it doesn’t count, Clarke,” she says.“Guys’ brains don’t work during sex, they just like - short out.You need to talk to him, with clothes on, and make up, because the alternative is really just not an option for either of you.”

 

Clarke takes a deep breath.When she and Bellamy talk, they end up arguing, and then they end up yelling, and if it gets too far the only way to quiet it back down is sex, and that would kind of defeat the point.“We were wearing clothes,” she tries, weakly.  

 

Octavia presses her lips together like she used to do in college when she was about to lock Clarke out of their room to force her to take a break from school work.“You have a connection in New York.You’re going to get a cab from JFK to your guys’ apartment, and you’re going to talk to my big damn doofus of a brother.”

 

Clarke fingers a loose thread in her sweatpants.She could be turning Bellamy’s hand over in hers, feeling the nobs of his knuckles and tracing the life lines on his palm. They could’ve come together, could’ve shared a hotel room and danced at the wedding and had breakfast on the beach.  

 

“Yeah,” she says.“I am.I’m going to do that.”

 

Octavia smiles, pats Clarke’s leg, and pops up to grab Lincoln’s hand.“Well,” she says, “We have two tickets for Kalei and Octavia Lincoln to Barcelona on a plane that leaves in about five minutes.So text me when you and Bell get done with the amazing _I’ll never leave you again_ sex to tell me everything’s okay.”

 

***

 

Clarke lets herself into their apartment with the key she still has on her key ring for some dumb reason.

 

Bellamy isn’t home yet, he won’t even land for a couple of hours - most of the guests weren’t scheduled to leave until the evening, but Clarke hadn’t been able to face them all so she’d gotten on the earliest flight they could get her on.The apartment is silent, except for the muffled sounds of New York City going about its day far below, and outside.  

 

The cream colored curtains on the window in their living room let in a soft glow of yellow light, but Clarke can’t make out anything well enough to see what’s changed with the lights off.So she gives herself a minute to just stand in the entryway and breathe in the familiar, stuffy air, kicking off her shoes and dropping her bag under the coat rack.Or, where the coat rack used to be.

 

When it’s been long enough that she’s starting to feel kind of pathetic, she flicks the lightswitch.

 

And - everything is the same.It’s not exactly the same, of course, because things tend to move around over the course of seven months, but her books are still overflowing on the bookshelf above the tv, Clarke’s _Scrubs_ mug is sitting next to the Keurig, there’s a tangle of phone charges sticking out of that one weird outlet above the microwave near the ceiling, a kindergartner’s drawing from her goddaughter stuck to the fridge, next to Octavia’s wedding announcement and Clarke’s acceptance letter for med school.  

 

She moves through the apartment without touching anything, like if she does everything will just fizzle away and she’ll be in an empty room, he will have moved, their life together will be erased.Her sketchbook is on the coffee table, the Police vinyl is still in that dorky, broken old record player Bellamy rescued from a dumpster, his battered old workman’s jacket is hung over one of her scarfs on the back of a kitchen chair.  

 

Their bed is unmade, which is to be expected.The pillow is gone from her side, stuffed under Bellamy’s on the left, but her industrial-sized alarm clock is still on the bedside table, next to a stack of flash cards and a polaroid of her, Octavia, and Raven on top of the Statue of Liberty, back when they were kids.Bellamy’s museum security badge and his taser are on his side, next to - 

 

A small green box.  

 

Clarke goes around to his side of the bed and sits down, picking the box up, and tries to tamp down on the part of her that feels like she’s an intruder, because this is her apartment, damn it, both their names are on the lease.She takes the lid off carefully, and she doesn’t know what she was expecting, but it’s a ring.A thin gold band and a tiny triangular blue crystal, and he’s been sleeping with it next to his bed.  

 

All she can see for a very long time is the utterly destroyed look on his face as she slammed the taxi door between them, over and over again on loop.

 

It’s three hours later when she finally hears the sounds of keys jingling and garbled swearing on the other side of the door.She’s sitting on their couch, but she stands up when he enters. 

 

She’s changed into more presentable clothes, stepping into a pair of jeans she’s been missing like she was putting on armour, tugging her hair into a french braid like she’s going into battle.She’s been sketching, filling pages with approxomations of palm trees and Lincoln’s smile and footprints in the sand down the aisle.

 

Bellamy looks completely wrung out.His eyes are red-ringed, hair sticking up in the back, expression reproachful, and he doesn’t say anything as he leans his suitcase against the wall and steps out of his shoes.He just stares at her, waiting, like _she’s_ the one who’s supposed to be apologizing.

 

“Hey,” she says.“You left me sleeping on a beach.”She pauses, swallows, hopes she doesn’t look as close to having a mental breakdown as she feels.“Low blow, Blake.”  

 

Bellamy scowls at her.She kind of wants to push him of a really high, really rocky cliff - or push him into bed, which, that’s a familiar feeling, not being able to separate the two sentiments.“You told me you didn’t want to fight me any more,” he snaps.“Pretty much said you were fucking done while we were making love, _that’s_ a fucking low blow, princess.”

 

Clarke gapes at him.“You bastard, you thought - “

 

“So you can just leave your key, whatever.Take your stuff, go back to England.Or you could wait until I fall asleep, maybe leave in the middle of the night this time, just to keep things interesting - “

 

Clarke strikes out a warpath into his personal space.“Fucking hypocrite,” she bites, “I tell you I can’t do this anymore, that I need you back.”She’s probably crying, it feels like she’s crying.“I thought you felt the same way, and then you’re gone in the morning, and I’m - I’m - “

 

She stops, chest heaving with the force of her frustrated breathing.Bellamy’s mouth is hanging open, he’s watching her like she’s simultaneously the best and worst thing he’s ever seen, and - if this war hadn’t made her so goddamn brave after so long, she’d probably make a run for it now.

 

“I thought,” Bellamy says, and stops.He sounds shell-shocked, like a city after an air raid has torn through.“I thought you were saying goodbye.”

 

Relief and understanding and hysteria crash over her in a wave, and she’s laughing.“I could never say goodbye to you,” she says.“Never, Bellamy.”

 

He closes his mouth, and doesn’t say anything for a long moment.Finally, “I would’ve gone with you, if you’d told me about Oxford.The first month you were gone, I spent a lot of time looking for job openings for museum security guards over there.I don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding something.”

 

Clarke kisses him.He smiles against her lips, and she smiles with him, arms hooked around his neck, and he’s lifting her off her feet, she feels a chuckle rumble in his chest, she’s pulling back only to kiss him again, and again, and again, they tip, she feels weightless, and then she’s bouncing down on top of him on their couch, the air leaves his lungs in a little puff and her chest is about to burst - 

 

His eye catches something over her shoulder.He reaches out to the coffee table, and comes back with _the Art of War_ clutched in his hand.“I knew you took it,” he says triumphantly.

 

She twists a piece of his hair around her finger, content to lie on top of him.“It was the biggest piece of you I could take with me,” she says softly.  

 

He flips through it one-handed, stopping with his thumb in a marked-up, dogeared page just about drowned in green highlighter.“If you know the enemy,” he reads, his voice an absent murmur, “and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

 

Clarke reaches out and takes the book from his hand, setting it down on the floor next to the couch.“We’ve had way more than a hundred battles,” she says.  

 

Bellamy grins crookedly and pulls her back down, saying as he does, “If Sun Tzu ever met us, he’d have written a million instead.”

 


End file.
